Halo Infinite's Latest News

For those unware, it's been announced (though, perhaps that word gives off the wrong impression)… it's been revealed that Forge nor Campaign Co-op will be available at launch. Now, millions have never made a Forge map in their entire lives, and thousands have never bothered with Halo's co-op modes. So what's the big deal?

Well, like Mods, Forge does have a connection to your enjoyment, even if you've never so much as spawned a fusion coil, because while I may never make a level anybody but my friends will want to play (and even that's debatable), there are those far more talented than me that are played by millions, and in all avenues too.

Back in the day, Major League Gaming used Onslaught and Amplified as two of its core maps, both of which were only possible with Forge, meanwhile on the casual side, people would play things like Duck Hunter, Jenga, and Sumo for hours on end, again, only possible in Forge.

It became such a core part of Halo's identity, every Halo game since then has had an "Action Sack" playlist, consisting of the wild and wacky modes dreamed up by the community using the tools provided.

Not having those tools at launch means all of the game's enjoyment is going to be mostly controlled by 343, with the exception to people with big friend circles or content creators with sizable audiences to build unique modes within just the gameplay customization settings, which was great for Halo 2 at the time, but severely limiting today.

Ironically, I think co-op will do less damage long term… but short term? Oh boy…

There are thousands of people who buy Halo specifically to playthrough the campaign with friends. Hell, even people today are buying MCC with the intention of reliving the series with a buddy, as every game released so far has allowed it day one.

As I said years ago in my "Communities are Individuals" video, the logic behind these decisions is sound. You've got to release a game, and let me emphasize this you've GOT to. Yes, I do think Microsoft should just delay it (I mean, it's been six years, what would another six months be?) but while MS might have an infinite (heh) cash supply, that doesn't mean they're not on the public trade.

The game's coming out during the Holiday season, for the same reason it's also being released for the original Xbox One despite using an all new next-generation engine, to profit from the largest audience pool.

As I said in discussion earlier, you can't just receive the most funding a video game has ever received, and convince your bosses to sell it to fewer people.

And of course, there's the pandemic, that I think really needs to be documented how much its impacting development, as it seems to be rather minimized in discussions. Granted, 343 ran into this trouble of not releasing games with complete content without a pandemic every single time in the past, so I wouldn't be surprised if this same scenario played out on a maybe smaller scale, but the pandemic certainly didn't help the game's progress.

Infinite's lacking launch features will be a problem, but truthfully, 343 are merely a symptom, not the cause of a much wider issue in the gaming industry, really just, economics in-general, that's going to take many sweeping changes to augment.

Not even Halo can do that on its own.